Review: Workplace ‘isms’ clash in ‘Employee Dharma Playbook’

If one person rises to the top, another must reside firmly at the bottom.

This is where Leela finds herself at the aerospace company that employs her. She is highly qualified to lead the highest teams the company offers, but either societal modernity or ancient custom is keeping her from certain pinnacles; it’s not fully clear which of those issues is taking the lead.

Geetha Reddy’s world premiere play “The Employee Dharma Handbook” is loaded with exquisite charm, fueled by a brilliant script equal parts hilarious and piercing. The words move through space fluidly, offering insights that show how out of depth many human resource offices are in the ways of cultural competence.

Leela (Megan Suri) is a brilliant, young propulsion systems manager, born in the United States of Indian descent. The fact that she was passed over for a promotion by the genial yet unimpressive Baasu (Kunal Dudheker) is not revelatory — women often face these kinds of rejections where qualifications are no substitute for hierarchical comfort. But there is something more here, namely where Leela’s family sits on the societal structure in the land of her roots.

Human resources employee Val (Kathryn Smith-McGlynn) sees sexism, which as a Black woman, is a daily detail in her world. Yet she is out of her depth due to an unexpected conversation of the Indian caste system. Leela is a Dalit, the lowest rung of Indian society, yet the man who could have made things right and promoted Leela to her rightful place in the company is Krish (Kapil Talwalkar), who sits upon the highest caste as a Brahmin.

Could a Dalit command orders to a Brahmin? Val is tough, having to determine as an outsider this possibility. She reaches out to longtime friend and chief technology officer C.K. (Ranjita Chakravarty) to help her understand what she doesn’t know, which is basically everything. The determinations are critical, considering billions of dollars in the form of a rocket launch to Jupiter is now facing serious jeopardy.

Reddy’s dashing script, with a beautiful staging crafted by acclaimed director Snehal Desai, is loaded with magic that crafts a thoughtful and pensive tale where nothing is ever as it seems. Was it caste that informed Krish’s ultimate decision to lean towards Baasu, or might it have been something less sinister and more pragmatic?

These are the complications of Reddy’s interrogation, where an ancient system that crosses borders deep into Silicon Valley plays out beneath Wilson Chin’s remarkable set, which feels like an operating room, where society is the patient.

Yet not every element of the story works. In the denouement, we see Baasu out of his depth, confirming Leela was in fact the best choice. His last moments portray him too much as an oafish simpleton, which undercuts both Leela’s brilliance and Krish’s leadership instincts, and moves the the play towards devices that prioritize humor over organic truth. And the big rocket launch feels way too clumsy, the stakes feeling much lower than play builds towards.

Suri is perfectly grounded as Leela, with gentle grit, thundering down on why she needs to be the mission’s voice. Smith-McGlynn is wonderful as an audience interlocutor, who’s on on a quest for justice yet fascinated with this new world of oppression she is now navigating. Her foil is C.K., Chakravarty dropping dimes of hilarity from every corner of the stage. Notice her wide eyes as she pours a little extra alcohol in her mug, and her sage advice to Val about trying to onboard herself too much in matters she is incapable of grasping.

While Dudheker excels in the physical humor of Baasu, finding comfort in his big, bouncy red ball chair, Talwalkar handles his many tactical shifts with the instincts of a seasoned veteran. The moments where he rages along with Dudheker and Chakravarty in their character’s native Telugu, smartly presented without translation, is scintillating.

The play’s more mundane moments support other times that are more compelling. Lessons on human resources being more company-oriented than human is another pearl of wisdom from Reddy, who clearly has a knack for corporate culture.

The play’s issues are greatly outweighed by the many hilarious lines that crackle all over the stage, so many of them perfectly timed and out of left field, causing surprising morsels of legit laughter. After all, when even offering a donut is filled with not just cream, but compelling complications, the play is definitely doing something right.

David John Chávez is a former chair of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association, a 2020 O’Neill National Critics Institute fellow, and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2022-’23). @davidjchavez.bsky.social.

‘THE EMPLOYEE DHARMA HANDBOOK’

By Geetha Reddy, presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley

Through: Aug. 2

Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission

Tickets: $34-$115; theatreworks.org